


Protected By Stripes

by NPP6



Category: Calvin & Hobbes
Genre: F/M, Post-Canon, Specifically: Picks Up in the Immediate Aftermath of the Time Travel Fix-It, Time Travel Fix-It
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-09
Updated: 2020-03-08
Packaged: 2021-03-01 00:00:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,730
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23075914
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NPP6/pseuds/NPP6
Summary: Susie Derkins could point you to the exact day that everything changed.
Relationships: Calvin/Susie Derkins, Susie Derkins/Original Character(s)
Comments: 11
Kudos: 50





	Protected By Stripes

Calvin was uncharacteristically serious.

This… this was no place for humor, any of that had died. Dramatics? Not here.

He had pulled out all the stops on this one. All of them.

Every last one.

One of him simply wasn’t enough. Not for this.

So he’d broken out the duplicator. And the transmogrifier.

And now there was Spiff. And there was Stupendous Man. And there was Tracer.

Him as a deinonychus. As a pterodactyl. As a T-Rex. As a Calvinsaurus.

He’d cast the net wide. The light particle. Liquid Calvin. The robot from the lonely planet.

He’d gone deep. Tiger Calvin. Safari Al. Dictator-For-Life Calvin.

The Calvin with the Flying Carpet was talking strategy with the one with the Transmogrifier Gun while a masked Calvin got out the Calvinball gear and another Calvin took stock of the weapons usually reserved for the monsters under the bed and Cowboy Calvin had a powwow with Indian Calvin.

Heck, he’d even used the (Once Forbidden) Ethicator to bring back the _good_ Calvin, _that’s_ how desperate he was.

And then the clock turned over and the original sighed from where he sat with Hobbes. “It’s time.”

Zero Hour had arrived.

Calvin was uncharacteristically serious, and anyone who knew him would have been _terrified_.

* * *

For the rest of her life, Susie Derkins would be able to point to the exact day that everything changed.

It hard started well, downright normally all things considered. The only thing remotely deviant from standard was that her parents were going to a fancy dinner and Rosalyn wasn’t available so she had a new babysitter for the night. And then things had gone typical, or at least typically Calvin.

It had been bad enough that the police had been called, and while they had been slightly confused at first by which _house_ they had been called to, they had visibly shifted to business-as-usual once they saw the little blonde terror.

This… this was obviously Calvin’s worst stunt _ever_ , possibly even including the Noodle Incident. Not only were both of Calvin’s parents lecturing him, but they had gotten both of _her_ parents in on it too.

And… that was the weird part. Because he’d been screaming and ranting and babbling like always throughout the entire ordeal, even once the cops showed up, but once her parents arrived and his parents got involved, there was this split second, where she’d seen this triumphant look on his face, like he’d just won a game nobody else even knew they were playing, and he’d just… stopped. No repentance or contrition, but no more protests or excuses either. And after that he’d just sat there, listening to every lecture the grown-ups had given him and looking… honestly looking like she felt when she finished a homework assignment and knew she’d gotten everything right even if she hadn’t gotten it back or even turned it in yet.

Not even smug, like he’d gotten away with something, just… satisfied.

And it was confusing, and Susie Derkins _hated_ being confused. Which was why she was listening at the door while Calvin was sitting through his lecture in silence. And then someone, she wasn’t quite sure who exactly, finally asked what she would later realize was the first question directed at Calvin since her parents had come home.

“Why would you do this?”

“To keep him away from Susie.”

What?

“What?”

“There was something… **_wrong_** with him. Hobbes could _smell_ it from my _room_ it was so bad.”

And Susie was prepared to scoff at that, except… except he’d seemed a little _off_ to her at first too. And stuffed tiger aside there were none of the delusions that usually came with a Calvin Excuse™, none of the aliens or monsters or spies. And all four of the adults had gone strangely quiet.

Finally Susie heard her own mother speak, “When you say ‘off…’”

“I don’t know. I don’t have words for it, neither does Hobbes.”

“Calvin,” The boy’s dad this time, “This man, have you ever…”

“I have never in my life seen him before tonight.”

It sounded like the parents relaxed at that, some tension Susie didn’t understand leaving the room.

His mother sighed audibly. “Calvin, what are we going to do with you?”

“I’ll make you a deal.”

What?

“What?”

“I’ll make you a deal. I will make all four of you… no, actually, I’ll make all five of you a deal, come on in Susie.”

Briefly, she considered escape, but she was pretty sure they’d heard her squeak when he called her out, so she just opened the door and slipped in, feeling quite sheepish. For a moment, she was the center of attention before Calvin spoke again, and overturned her entire world with eight words.

“I will never be mean to you again.”

“What?”

“I, Calvin, will never again be mean to Susie Derkins for as long as either of us draws breath.”

“What?”

“No more snowballs. No more water balloons. No more pinecones. No more crabapples. No more squirt guns. No more rocks. No more mud puddles. No more bugs. No more tricks. No more scams. No more name calling. No more attacking tea parties. No more traps. No more pranks.”

“What about, about, what about school lunches?”

“I will either observe table manners so well people will think I’m _you_ , or sit on the far side of the cafeteria. If you want I can do both.”

“And… and G.R.O.S.S.?”

“I will personally burn my membership hat and hand-deliver you the ashes with my melted medals and a laminated copy of my letter of resignation.”

Susie felt somewhat faint and suddenly found herself sitting down. “You’re serious.”

“Absolutely.”

There was a moment of silence before Susie’s Dad cleared his throat. “And in exchange for this _momentous_ concession,” the eye roll was audible, “what exactly are you requesting?”

Calvin looked him dead in the eye. “That you never let that sicko anywhere near Susie ever again.”

There was a pause. “And?”

“And?”

“What else?”

“Nothing. That’s it. I’ll be honest, I’d rather it be _any_ kid, but I’m trying to be reasonable. So that’s the deal. He’s not allowed anywhere near Susie ever again, and I will be nice to her until the day we die.”

Susie was starting to wonder if she’d fallen down a rabbit hole and hit a looking glass at the bottom. “F-Forfeit.” She stuttered out. When the parents looked at her she flushed and tried again. “What’s your forfeit clause? What do you give if you back out?”

This was the way to tell, she thought. If this was just a con, he’d list off a trinket or three. If he actually intended to try, it’d be a couple comics or his dart gun. If (impossibly) he was being genuinely serious, he’d probably offer up his cape and cowl, or that red spaceship.

And then she actually met his eyes and her blood ran cold. The last time he’d looked like that had involved a raccoon, a pair of third graders, and death threats gruesome enough that she’d had nightmares for the next three days.

So she wasn’t all too surprised that his answer stopped her heart.

“Susie, if I renege on this deal? You can have Hobbes.”

* * *

Its three weeks later when she sees the man again.

Impossibly, _terrifyingly_ , Calvin has kept up his end of the agreement. It’s been… well, it should’ve been nice, but frankly it’s been too _bizarre_ to be enjoyable.

It also kept getting weirder the more people noticed. Miss Wormwood had finally asked her about it one day before class and when Susie had explained things the teacher had just gone really quiet and given Calvin this weird look. They really hadn’t learned anything that day; Miss Wormwood had just kind of… sat there.

So here she was, walking home from school again because the bus driver had been sick the past couple weeks and they couldn’t find a temp, when a car pulls up next to her and the babysitter she wasn’t supposed to have again gets out.

“Susie!” He smiles. Something’s wrong. “Sorry I was late picking you up! Your parents had something come up so I’m gonna be taking care of you again tonight!”

“Why didn’t they call the school to let me know?”

There’s a flash of something before his smile turns wry. Something is wrong. “Ah, they tried actually, but it was really last-minute and you’d already left so they just asked me to pick you up on the way over since they already had to leave.”

“What?” That doesn’t make any sense, why would they – “My parents wouldn’t–” she cuts herself of as she realizes. Her parents _wouldn’t_. Something is **_wrong_**. “Stay away from me.” She takes a step back, shifting her backpack in case she needs to run.

He steps forward. “Now come on Susie, sometimes things come up and–” **_Something is WRONG!_**

 _“STAY AWAY FROM ME!”_ Her parents have been as serious about the deal as Calvin. They _know_ he’s been following through, she’s _told_ them about it. They never would have broken the promise. They never would have let this man near her.

Which means he’s lying.

And Susie’s smart enough to know what it means when a grown-up lies to try and get you in a car.

“Susie, what’s gotten into you?”

 _“STAY AWAY FROM ME YOU SICKO!”_ Channel Calvin, be loud, attract attention. Get help if she can, and if she can’t then run and bite and squirm and claw and kick and _fight_ , any way she can.

“Is there a problem here?” At first Susie’s still wary, but then the man who just showed up shifts his jacket to show his badge and Susie feels like crying in relief. It’s a police officer, she’s saved.

“Sorry about the noise Officer, you know how kids are. I’m supposed to be watching her for her parents, but–” No.

“My parents,” Susie bites out, because she _will not_ let this man disappear with her when salvation is so close at hand, “Agreed that you were, and I quote, ‘never supposed to be anywhere near [me] ever again.’”

“Oh now come on Susie. I know this is a surprise, but–”

“Aaaand I’m gonna go ahead and stop you there, because quite frankly even if this wasn’t suspicious as all Heee – Get Out, we’ve actually had a number of reports of a suspicious person around here following little kids. Funnily enough the physical description kinda looks like you.”

“Come on now Officer, this is get–” and then he lunged at the officer and the was a crackling, and a splash, and a zap, and he was on the ground, and a black rectangle was clattering out of his hand, and there was a smell like popcorn and straightening irons and steaks.

“Fun fact. Trying to use a wet taser results in the charge grounding into you. This is not conducive to your health.”

_Calvin._

He had come to save her (again she was beginning to suspect) from being kidnapped.

“You little shit.” The snarl brought attention back to her would-be abductor.

“I see the eye’s healed up nicely.”

“Bastard. No rock-packed snowballs to save you this time.”

“No, but I’m resourceful. Case in point.” Calvin hefted what Susie now realized was a _second_ water balloon. “That was my warning shot. This one is full of undiluted sulfuric acid borrowed from the school science lab. Totally harmless to rubber, not so much to human flesh. Just so we’re clear, this won’t so much melt a hole through your torso as simply melt your torso.”

For a moment he looked like he was going to get up and attack Calvin, but then the police officer had a knee on his back and his handcuffs out.

Calvin snorted. “Took you long enough. How much of a distraction you need there Copper?”

The officer made a sound somewhere between embarrassed and amused. “Let’s just call it a good distraction and not mention reaction times to my pals?”

“Eh, fair enough.”

“You do know just how lucky you are that bluff worked, right?”

“Who was bluffing?”

* * *

“How?”

“What?”

They’re deep in the woods, just the two (three, Calvin protests) of them. They’ve gone in deep, and they can’t even hear any signs of people, and the sun is dappling everything through the leaves and it’s a special kind of special and it feels like the real world is just far enough away that she can _almost_ believe him when he insists (again) that Hobbes is real, and she wishes she could see the world the way he does, just a little, and she’s come so close to catching glimpses of it, and she feels like this is the only place she can ask and actually get the real answer. “How did you know to save me from him?”

Calvin freezes. “I…” He slumps, and from the way he’s looking away, she can tell he’s listening to Hobbes and the tiger is saying something the boy doesn’t want to hear, and she _wishes_ she could listen in, and she tries, _so hard_ , and some days it feels like she’s getting closer and some days it seems she’s fading back, and today seems like a good one, because she can almost hear that there might be something in the breeze, and then she’s snapped out of it when he speaks.

“Four Thousand Nine Hundred and Seventy-Two.”

“What?”

“4,972. I have been to your funeral 4,972 times.”

* * *

_The first time… You need to understand this Susie; the first time around I was an idiot who didn’t realize what was going on. Mainly because I didn’t want the world to work that way._

_The first time, it was like a vacation. Nobody knew what had happened, so nobody told us anything. All we knew was that you’d just disappeared._

_And me? Idiot that I was? I just enjoyed not having to deal with you anymore._

_And then we found out you’d been kidnapped, and I figured it’d be like the movies y’know? It’d be a fun adventure and you’d escape or get rescued and come home and tell us all about it and brag about how awesome it was and I’d pretend not to care but secretly be impressed._

_And then they found your body. And there was a funeral, with a burial. And there was a gravestone with your name on it, and I may have indulged in a little bit of grave dancing._

_I didn’t get it that first time around._

_I’d never... never seen death before, not like that. There was the raccoon, sure, but people aren’t raccoons, and death… I just didn’t get it._

_So I spent some time living in a world without Susie, and after about two weeks I grabbed one of my blueprints one Sunday and I was halfway through setting up an ambush for you before I remembered._

_That was when it started sinking in._

_A couple days later I thought “Eh, why not?” and got out the old time machine and traveled back to when you were still alive and around._

_And I teased you and pelted you, and you fought back, and the sun was a little brighter and the air a little sharper and the world was **right** again. Until you vanished._

_And there was another funeral. And there was another gravestone._

_And that was the point where I realized two things. That death was forever. And that I had no real desire for a world without Susie._

_And so I went back. Tried to warn you. You didn’t believe me._

_And there was a funeral. And there was a gravestone._

_I warned your parents. I warned **my** parents. I spent almost a dozen trips going back trying to warn people before I realized it was never going to work._

_Nobody else was ever going to believe me. Nobody else would be able to help._

_I would have to save you myself._

_I spent the next Four Thousand and Thirteen trips solving your murder._

_I snuck out of the house and cut classes to break into police stations and hold stakeouts. I finally learned how to pick locks so that I could get to the evidence the cops were hiding. Learned how to pick pockets so I could steal their notes. Figured out how to send just my memories back because keeping hundreds of me coordinated was ridiculous and thousands was impossible._

_And then, finally, I had the complete picture._

_I warned you again, this time gave you an itemized list. Everything that happened, down to the minute._

_Thought I’d finally fixed things._

_You vanished again, right on schedule._

_Handed the cops your location. They didn’t believe me._

_Got fed up and went myself. I was too late. Near as I can tell you let on about my foreknowledge, he panicked, killed you early, and skipped town._

_Another funeral. Another gravestone._

_I went back again._

_Warnings were officially out. I could now confirm they would only make things worse._

_Six-Hundred and Fifty-Two rescue attempts._

_A lot of those were me trying to find a time window where I actually **could** get you out, but others…_

_Susie, I don’t know **what** he did to you. I get some of it, the, the torture stuff. That made sense, a twisted, sick sort of sense, but sense. I knew what that stuff did, what it was for. But there was other stuff too. Things he used on you, things he did to you, even a couple things he made **you** do. I don’t understand those things, and something tells me I don’t **want** to understand those things._

_But whatever he did Susie, it… it did things to your head. Like, like one time you said that I was apparently the devil after all and thanked me for coming for you because I would be kinder than he was._

_Another time you apologized for misjudging me the whole time and said everything made sense if I was the angel of death._

_But none of it mattered. By the time he would actually leave you alone long enough for me to get you out… you were broken. Just, vacant. It was like you’d died already but your body hadn’t gotten the memo. You wouldn’t even walk, I had to carry you._

_And even though those times I could get you out of the basement, I never did get you all the way out of the house._

_Got the cops there on a bomb threat once. He killed you and then himself._

_Finally I just got there as soon as I could after you vanished and chloroformed the guy._

_That was the time you asked me to kill you so it wouldn’t hurt anymore._

_That… that was the one that nearly broke me._

_I realized that rescuing you wouldn’t be enough. I was going to have to make sure you were never taken to begin with._

_I tried disappearing myself to get the adults on guard. That time you actually vanished **faster**._

_Tried the buddy system. That one just gave him a hostage to make you more obedient._

_Gaslighted him. He just moved._

_Faked a 911 using a recording I’d taken for evidence one time. He nearly caught me that time. Vanished with you the moment he heard the sirens coming._

_More funerals. More gravestones._

_Attempt #4,972 I tried kidnapping you myself. That one backfired horribly. Your parents were found in the kitchen. He skipped town. We buried an empty coffin in your grave._

_After that I found myself with two options. Option one was to do something big, loud, and **utterly impossible** to ignore to make sure he never had a chance to take you._

_So I broke out the duplicator, the transmogrifier, anything and everything I had, all in one massive burst, one gamble to make sure you **never got in that car**. And finally, **finally** , it worked._

_Four Thousand Nine Hundred and Seventy-Two times I screwed up. 4,972 times you died. 4,972 funerals. 4,972 gravestones._

_But I finally managed to get to a world with you still in it. I finally succeeded._

_I finally… I finally saved the only human friend I’ve ever had._

* * *

Susie found herself staring at her… at her friend’s back. Her mind raced a thousand miles a second, frantically trying to process what she’d just heard. It was fantastical, unbelievable, and she knew that anybody else would write this off as another fantasy, if slightly more macabre than usual.

Except.

She wasn’t anybody else. She was Susie Derkins.

And this was Calvin.

Calvin, who hadn’t mentioned aliens once. The only monster was the one she already very much believed in.

Calvin, who had, for the first time in his life, readily admitted he didn’t know something.

Calvin, who had foregone any theatrics to simply stand there, not even looking at her.

Calvin, who hadn’t even wanted to tell her and had to be talked into it by his tiger.

Calvin, who was _broken_ by this in every way his fantasies usually energized him.

Calvin, who was _openly crying_ as he recounted losing her almost five thousand times.

Calvin, who, she was just now realizing, she absolutely trusted never to lie to her.

She was Susie Derkins, and he was Calvin.

Really, there’s only one way this _could_ have ended.

“I believe you.”

There was a sound like breaking glass and screeching records and tearing papers and snicking scissors, and light refracted off of nothing as the air broke into impossible fractals that danced to a thousand tunes, and she tasted ink and joy and snowmen and summer and laughter and tuna, and she was falling and rising and twisting and sliding, and she could feel velvet and cardboard and bedsheets and carpet and clouds and shadows, and she could smell leaves and rain and ozone and earth and desert and ice and smoke, and, and, and–

And as she staggered, there was a moment where she almost lost what she’d just found, but a fuzzy paw tapped her just above the waist and she stepped _forward_ instead of _back_ , and suddenly…

Suddenly it all made sense.

“Hello Susie, it’s nice to finally meet you properly.”

“Hello Hobbes, it’s nice to meet you too.”


End file.
